


Whistle while you work

by jenny_wren



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:13:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_wren/pseuds/jenny_wren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Psychiatric review time on Atlantis. I dunno, is dark crack a genre?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whistle while you work

Kate Heightmeyer pops her head around her office door and smiles at the visiting psychiatrist.

“Dr Phillips, how’s it going?”

The man closes the file he’s studying with a snap and lifts his head to stare at her through his large imposing glasses.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I know,” she says, “It’s rather impressive really.” She tries to tone down her smugness, not a good attitude for a psychiatrist who is being audited to take, but damn, she’s proud of her achievements. 

“We haven’t had one suicide the whole five years the project’s being live,” she continues. There had been several deaths in the field that she considers suspicious, as well as a couple of accidents in Atlantis proper that went beyond mere carelessness, but not one out and out suicide.

Dr Phillips is staring at her in a rather disconcerting fashion.

“No suicides,” he says. “You consider that to be your grand achievement.”

“Well,” she titters, “not in my previous practice. But out here, Dr Phillips, with the Wraith constantly knocking on our door, the city powered on a wing and a prayer, and our only contact with Earth irregular and one political decision from being cut off completely, I consider it damn near miraculous.”

“So if I went to speak to Dr Beckett I wouldn’t find him passed out drunk in his quarters.”

Kate stiffens up, outraged, “We don’t talk about that sort of thing in Atlantis.”

“But.”

“Dr Beckett would never endanger his patients, what he does in his off-hours is nothing to do with us.”

“And Dr Weir’s obvious anorexia.”

“Dr Weir quite naturally has control issues relating to food. Atlantis has been on rationing on eleven separate occasions over the five years, three times we’ve been reduced to tava bean broth and whatever an individual has managed to hoard.”

“She separated her stew into meat, carrots, onions and tava beans, which she ate one chunk from one heap at a time, starting with the beans. She only ate the meat when Lieutenant-Colonel Sheppard arrived and coaxed her into eating by sharing it with her. The sole thing the Lieutenant-Colonel actually ate.”

Kate doesn’t quite understand what Dr Phillips is getting at, “The Colonel never eats well when a gate-team’s off-world. If it gets too bad, Carson hooks him up to an IV.”

“And you find this perfectly ordinary behavior?”

“Sure,” Kate says, puzzled. So Dr Weir and the Colonel are picky eaters, they look out for each other. The one who worries her is Dr Simpson who hasn’t eaten solid food since the third time the Wraith invaded the city. It leaves her reliant on the liquid meal replacements the Daedalus supplies and if they are ever cut off from Earth, it’s going to be very difficult ensure she receives all the nutrients she needed.

“And Dr McKay, you find him perfectly normal too.”

She smiles fondly. “Nobody could ever call Rodney ordinary.”

“So you are providing him therapy to help him reduce his stimulant consumption?”

“No, why would I do that? How else is he going to stay up for three days at a stretch? Carson is very careful what he prescribes him and manages to keep Rodney functioning on twelve hours sleep for every four days, baring emergencies.”

“And you don’t have a problem with this?”

“I told you, nothing about Rodney is ordinary. Radek has to take sleeping pills as well as stimulants, so we try to keep him on a lighter schedule, unless there’s a problem.”

“Right,” says Dr Phillips. “Obviously.”

Kate smiles encouragingly, pleased to see he got it.

“Would Radek be the Dr Zelenka who I spotted inhaling alcohol?”

“Probably, he distills it himself. Since it’s extremely high-proof he can inhale the vapors and it hits the blood stream straight away. You can always rely on engineers to be efficient.”

“Efficient, that’s one word for it.”

“Thank you. Can I expect your review of the psychiatric health and care of Atlantis to be broadly positive?”

“Positive!” Dr Phillips shoots to his feet. “Are you delusional woman? The whole base is exhibiting symptoms of mental distress. I’d hazard a guess every pathology in the DSM handbook is on displayed by someone.”

Kate coughs. “Did you hear the part where I explained that the Wraith are constantly knocking on our door, the power supply runs on a wing and a prayer, and our sporadic contact with Earth could be cut off at any moment? Of course we’re bloody displaying symptoms of mental distress.”

“And yet you offer them no help.”

“I help as best I can.”

“Yeah, sure. I haven’t even seen any signs of a support group, which is practically Psychiatry 101 it’s so basic.”

“I ran support groups, for three months. At that point self-harm had exploded from eleven individuals to every goddamn person in the city. I pulled the plug before bulimia went the same way. Rodney never purged before he got the idea from one of my self-help groups. Caught it from Miko, who added slicing herself up with razor blades to her repertoire.”

“And you provide them with no counseling,” he accuses.

“How exactly are you supposed to counsel someone who blew up five-sixths of a solar system? Oops just doesn’t cover it. We woke up the Wraith who are sucking the life from the whole Galaxy. I don’t think writing letters of apology is going to cut it.”

She’s beginning to get angry that Dr Phillips is forcing her to speak about this. They were the facts you just didn’t talk about in Atlantis. Sure it was Colonel Sheppard who had technically woken the Wraith, but he’d been dragged into the program at the last minute and gone to Atlantis without ever stepping through a wormhole before. The only person who blames him was the Colonel himself.

And possibly Teyla Emmagen. Teyla’s placidly smiling mask is so firmly fixed to her face that no one sees beneath it except when she fights. And Kate knows exactly how bruised and battered her ‘training sessions’ had left the Colonel. Currently she is working with seven different Marines, and Carson is waiting to see how often Ancient devices can fix broken bones before leaving a permanent weakness.

Ronon trains with the Colonel now. Given nobody talks about it, Kate had to wonder how everyone knows that the current going rate was five strokes of the whip for a death on a mission the Colonel authorized, ten for a death on a mission under his direct command. Nobody is quite sure how the Colonel apologized for the whole Thalan incident but Sheppard hadn’t been able to leave his room for two days.

She glares at Dr Phillips, “I find your attitude to be disrespectful. Please bear in mind the expedition was a one-way trip to a destination where the only certain things were a limited amount of oxygen and a large enclosed space. The decision to walk through that first wormhole is a pretty good working definition of psychosis.”

Dr Phillips continues to ignore her well-constructed arguments. “You’re complacent, lackadaisical attitude is truly shocking.” He storms from her office.

“Damn,” says Kate. She taps her ear-piece, “Colonel?”

“Problem?” the Colonel responds instantly.

“Operation Sim City on Dr Phillips. I’ll send you the paperwork to switch with his reports.”

“You got it it, Doc.”

The ancient mind control device is such a blessing. How Dr Phillips had managed to miss the rampant outwardly-directed sociopathy in Atlantis is beyond her, but oh well, thems the breaks. 

Kate keeps her people safe any way she can.


End file.
